Thursday, August 14, 2008

Product Review - Almond Butter Balls!

Okay all you almond butter fanatics - this one's for you. Each month my family places an order with a food co-op located in Oregon. They have a lot of organic food including many dairy-free, gluten-free products that I can eat. In flipping through their catalog a couple months ago, I stumbled across these gems and just had to give them a try...

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Here's my review in the style of Miss Em:

Almond Butter Balls

Package says: Betty Lou's Almond Nut Butter Balls with Antioxidants. Now with Green Tea and Grape Seed Extracts. Vegan. No Trans Fat. No Wheat, Corn, or Soy.

INGREDIENTS: Almonds, Fruitrim® (Fruit Juices, Natural Grain Dextrins), Oats, Brown Rice Syrup, Inulin (dietary fiber), Rice Protein Concentrate, Organic Brown Rice Crisp (Organic Brown Rice, Sea Salt, Organic Brown Rice Syrup), Rice Bran, Raisins, Sesame Seeds, Pure Vanilla, Sea Salt, Natural Almond Flavor, ActiVin® Grape Seed Extract (50 mg), TEAVIGO™ Green Tea Extract (25 mg), Mixed Tocopherols (Natural Vitamin E).

Nutrition Facts: 1 ball (40g), 170 calories, 8g Total Fat, 1g Saturated Fat, 90mg Sodium, 20g Total Carb., 4g Dietary Fiber, 8g Sugars, 5g Protein, Calcium 2%, Iron 4%.

Review: I love these things! They have a crunchy outside thanks to the coating of chopped almond pieces and a soft, moist, chewy inside. Sometimes I will find a raisin or two in the middle of one, but mostly they are just big balls of almond buttery goodness. I like to take these with me to work for mid-afternoon snacks. They're individually wrapped, and they came in a huge plastic storage jar.

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What else can I say, except ... they're drool-worthy! In the next pic you can see what the middle looks like:

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I found the Betty Lou's website today, and to my delight I see that they make a lot of other various nut butter ball flavors including High Protein Almond Butter, Peanut Butter, Spirulina Ginseng, Cashew Pecan, Fudgie Filbert, Chocolate Walnut, Coconut Macadamia. WOW! Those sound soooooo good!

Sadly I haven't seen these in stores anywhere, but here is the link to the website where you can buy them online.

Saturday, August 2, 2008

Cashew Coconut Pudding

Last week our food order arrived from the co-op. This time I ordered raw cashews (among other things) so I could try some more recipes from Ani's Raw Food Kitchen.

A few days ago I made her recipe for cashew coconut pudding. It came out delish! I did soak the cashews for 8 hours before making it, because I'll do anything to make food easier on digestion. (Not to mention she recommends that step.)

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The only sad thing is that in the process of making this, I think I killed our blender. :-( Boohoo! *sobs* The motor died on me, so I had to finish it in the food processor. Thankfully it was already almost done.

This is the second blender of ours I've managed to kill. We used to have a nice Kitchen Aid one, but I dropped that one on the floor, and it shattered into a million pieces. Now our replacement is gone too. Sigh.

I've been craving a homemade smoothie ever since. 

A Fueling Breakfast

This morning it was back to work for me after being gone for a couple weeks. I knew that I needed a fueling breakfast, so I made a big bowl of oatmeal with egg whites for protein.

This bowl includes oats, soymilk, ground flaxseed, currants (we're out of raisins), egg whites, and pecans. Yum!

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